Clearing the backlog

Sunday, February 24, 2013

I write blog entries to create a record for myself and to entertain you, so I hope that you enjoy them. I enjoy writing them. You'll notice that it's been quite awhile since I've posted a blog entry. Participating in BLC 21 has sucked up the time I used to have for creating blog posts in addition to several other things, and I'm frustrated by that.

Because I joined SparkPeople on Sept 16, 2012, I post to commemorate the 16th of every month as another month on SparkPeople, even when it takes me several days to find the time or figure out what I'd like to say. However, I've missed both January and February 16th because I've been so ding-dang busy with BLC 21 activities and--gasp--spending time with my actual real-life family. To paraphrase the moral of the movie Lilo and Stitch, my family is small, but it's not broken.

These are some fragments that I intended to post:

January 16 is my four-month anniversary on SparkPeople as well as the start date of BLC 21. Since September 16th, I’ve participated in the Fall 5% Challenge and a challenge using a walking game called Walk it Out for Nintendo Wii. I’m proud to say that I finished both challenges successfully, even when it was hard, even when I felt like quitting. I should qualify that my idea of “quitting” didn’t mean I’d stop exercising or begin eating with reckless abandon. I thought about quitting challenges when I was staying up late just to record data or enter a challenge-mandated reply to a chat thread. I thought about quitting when team mates whined about the reasons why they didn't exercise or ate too much or hadn't posted to the chat thread. (Um, that’s why it’s called a “challenge”, ladies. It’s supposed to stretch your abilities beyond where they were when you started. That’s the point.)

January 19 (with thanks to BrookRivers who posted this to her own blog from the BLC 21 Mighty Mocha Hunters chat thread--I am deeply flattered.) Here's why I pack my snacks at home and why you should too--if I leave home without them, I'm quietly planning to eat something tempting, delicious, and probably not nutritious whether I admit it to myself or not. I'm at the mall, I'm hungry, it's lunchtime--of course I have to eat at the the food court. What I am supposed to do? Starve?

Did I know when I left the house that I'm be out past lunchtime? Most likely. But hey, I have to eat the Mrs. Field's cookie because I'm so hungry! Yeah right. If you want to eat at the food court, plan for it. Make it work in your eating plan. There really is no "oops". You're not a damsel in distress stranded in a sea of fast food. You knew the logical consequences of leaving home without food you could eat. Ignoring consequences has consequences; it doesn't justify eating something you "shouldn't" eat.

January 22
A thought about “I deserve a treat” thinking: We should make a list of treats. Realistic treats. For those of us accustomed to consoling ourselves with food, we’ve spent a lot of time looking forward to eating something as a reward. All the ladies’ magazines and diet magazines suggesting reward substitutions like “take a bubble bath” and “buy something in your new size” are too advanced for us. We need to develop some intermediary strategies to get there. Right now, a bubble bath can’t hold a candle to a big fat chocolate bar.
I’m willing to say it loud and proud—if your treats are all food treats, then you need a list of food treats that fit into your eating plan. Compile a list that is personalized to you. Be realistic—choose things you enjoy, but not your “trigger” foods. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you’ll limit yourself to the 11 Doritos serving when your usual serving is—oh, you know—the bag.

Amusing footnote: One of the ladies' magazines I subscribe to suggested that we ought to eat an apple and a mozzarella cheese stick instead of a Snickers bar to save some X number of calories. If only we had all realized sooner the direct relationship between candy bars and the apple/cheese stick combo, there would be no need for the SparkPeople website.

LOLATURTLE
HEE! Apple + cheese stick! Reminds me of one of my favorite blogs of all time, with a big pile of this sort of "helpful" advice... The blog post title is Horrible Pieces of Advice Provided By Fools.

"So here, in no particular order, are my top ten choices for the most infuriating, nitwitty, knuckleheaded advice that I have run across — in most cases, over and over and over again.

1. Want chocolate? Have a pickle!

No, people really say this, and things like it. The idea being that if you crave something sweet and you counter it with something salty, you’ll kill the craving. I’m not saying this has never worked for anyone — what I’m saying is that if it works, it’s because you don’t want the chocolate that much in the first place. If you really want the chocolate, the pickle isn’t going to do anything except change your setting from “want chocolate” to “want chocolate, and am grumpy and irritable.” "

ATTACKFATCAT
Maybe if the apple was covered in chocolate, that substitution would've made more sense to me. I get the sweet/salty thing, but sometimes there's just no subbing for chocolate ;)

I like your point about healthy snacks. If I just go "oh I'll wing it" for my work day, it usually leads to disastrous results. If I manage to at least pack my snacks and breakfast for the day, even if I don't have anything for lunch, I am way more likely to end up at Subway for lunch than if I pack nothing at all. I guess it's just a mind over matter thing. If I don't start my day healthy, by lunch I'm all like "who cares?".1383 days ago

SHARON10002
Great blob, and I totally agree with all of your points. I believe in the old adage - "everything in moderation". Depriving myself of something that I am desiring - like chocolate - will only serve to make me want it even more. So I allow myself 1 ounce of really rich, dark chocolate. I already knew that I was going to have it, and so I've planned and accounted for it in my daily tracking total. I think that planning plays a big roll in our success.I'm with you - a cheese stick is never going to hold a candle to a good piece of chocolate!